The executive gave the force of law to all of Forey's decrees to the 25th of June, including one to outlaw malefactors and bring them to trial by a French court-martial.[1] This act displeased a large number of citizens, who could not see the propriety of Mexicans being tried by French officers. The fact is, that the triumviri forming the executive were controlled by their French superiors.[2] The order of Guadalupe was restored by decree of June 30th, on the plea of respect for Pope Pius IX., who had sanctioned it, and for the foreign sovereigns and distinguished personages on whom it had been conferred.[3]
The junta superior appointed[4] the so-called notables who were to constitute the assembly, and, conjointly with the above-named body, were to meet on the 8th of July, to determine the future form of government. It is hardly necessary to say that the SO-called notables were, with a few exceptions, who also called themselves monarchists, the mere tools of the reactionary plotters.[5] Teodosio Lares was chosen president, and Álejandro Arango y Escandon and José
17 Decrees of June 20th and July 1st. Mex., Boletin Ley., 1863, 57-8, 95-6. General Forey, Coleccion Completa de los Decretos Generales Expedidos por . . .Mexico, 1863, 8vo, pp. 40, contains a collection of decrees issued by General Forey, the principal of which order a reduction of import duties, the confiscation of the property of persons taking up arms against the French intervention, the appointment of a commission to regulate the matter of municipal property sold at inadequate prices, as also the privileges of the press. Others relate to the organization of the government and the establishment of courts-martial for the suppression of banditti.
- ↑ Forey was at the head in military matters, Saligny in political affairs, and Budin in financial matters.
- ↑ 18
- ↑ Instituted by Iturbide in 1822; abolished after his dethronement; revived by Dictator Santa Anna in 1853, and again definitively suppressed by his successor in 1855. It is here revived a second time, and its grand cross conferred, perhaps pensioned with $2,000 a year, on Forey and Saligny by their creatures. Lefêvre, Doc. Maximiliano, 320-1; Méx., Derecho Intern., 3d pt, 695-706; Arrangoiz, Méj., iii. 123; Méx., Boletin Ley., 1863, 91.
- ↑ June 29th, Méx., Boletin Ley., 1863, 66-8.
- ↑ It has been asserted that the clothing with which some of the members presented themselves was bought with French money. Lefêvre, Doc. Maximiliano, i. 327. This has been denied, and pronounced 'la calumnia de un republicano francés.' Arrangoiz, Méj., iii. 124. Henry M. Flint, who in his work, Mexico under Maximilian, approves the acts of the French and the whole affair of placing Mexico under a monarchy, assures us, on page 55, that the assembly of notables comprised the men who had in 1848 and 1849, and again in 1860, 'implored the United States to save Mexico and give her a good government,' which is quite possible.
